Illinois COVID-19 update: Hospitalization totals remain low, but climbing

The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 3,587 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and nine additional deaths Thursday.

The state’s seven-day rolling average for new cases went up to 2,595 new cases per day, the highest average since Feb. 19.

For Wednesday, the state administered 20,131 shots.

From the IDPH’s data dashboard:

Case rate per 100,000: 20.4 (Up 0.3 from Wednesday)

Percentage of ICU beds available: 23%

COVID-19 diagnosed hospital admissions (7-day rolling average): 39 (Same as Wednesday)

Weekly deaths reported: 45

Illinois has seen 3,110,229 total cases of the virus, and 33,559 people have died.

As of late Wednesday, Illinois had 578 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, the most since March 15. Of those, 77 were in intensive care units, and 28 were on ventilators. COVID-19 hospitalizations have gone up for six consecutive days.

County-by-county update: As of last week, the IDPH will provide a county-by-county update focusing on the case rate per 100,000 people, the percentage of ICU beds available, a rolling seven-day average of COVID-19 diagnosed hospital admissions and weekly deaths.

The definition of a COVID-19 diagnosed hospital admission is as follows: The seven-day average of daily number of hospital admissions given a diagnosis of COVID-19 as measured using the Illinois Syndromic Surveillance System.

Illinois collects all emergency department and inpatient visits through syndromic surveillance from all acute care hospitals in Illinois in near-real time. Data is presented with a three-day lag to allow time for diagnosis to be reported.

At the county level, a visit is counted by where the patient resides. A patient with multiple visits will be counted for each visit. Admissions may not be because of COVID-19 as the primary cause. Syndromic surveillance data is not the same source used by CDC to report COVID-19 hospital admissions data.

Vaccine update: As of Thursday, the IDPH reported a total of 26,494,545 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed statewide, with 21,739,984 vaccines administered.

As of Thursday, 8,231,094 Illinoisans have been fully vaccinated, or 64.60% of the population. Illinois has a population of 12,741,080 people.

CDC numbers:

Among Illinois residents 5 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,680,137 (72.8%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,691,435 (81.3%)

Among Illinois residents 12 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 8,268,870 (76.3%)

At Least 1 Dose: 9,226,761 (85.1%)

Among Illinois residents 18 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 7,633,155 (77.5%)

At Least 1 Dose: 8,527,778 (86.5%)

Among Illinois residents 65 and older:

Fully Vaccinated: 1,803,032 (88.2%)

At Least 1 Dose: 1,974,564 (95%)

There can be as much as a 72-hour delay in reporting from health care providers on vaccines administered.

In northern Illinois, here is the percentage of the population fully vaccinated by county:

Chicago: 68.14%

Suburban Cook: 72.26%

Lake: 69.24%

McHenry: 65.19%

DuPage: 74.95%

Kane: 65.90%

Will: 66.15%

Kendall: 68.47%

La Salle: 58.02%

Grundy: 57.23%

DeKalb: 56.21%

Ogle: 56.50%

Lee: 58.57%

Whiteside: 51.50%

Bureau: 56.35%